Her being a girl is never brought up as anything special or significant, TPN as story could work with any of lead regardless of gender and all discussions and praise for it has literally shit to do with it having a female lead. Why people need to put so much stress into something insignificant I have no clue. Nobody here is even outright ignoring her being a female they just don't care.
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Nobody here has said anything in regards to ignoring her gender but the very fact that people like you Mawara are insisting that we take notice of it makes me think that you believe all Emma has going for her is being female and nothing more which is a very narrow-minded way of thinking things and I'm glad that that the story and discussion for the series don't even bring this up. Also both of those points are very vague what within itself because you're saying that those roles can't be given to males and that they're gender specific which outside one detail the manga have anything to say about. So TPN has a female lead, who gives a shit? Most people are reading it for other reasons beyond gender politics.
The fact that her gender isn't highlighted at every turn doesn't mean it's irrelevant (if anything that would be worse). Emma would absolutely be a different character if she was male, and it'd also some of the current character dynamics pretty heavily. Again no one's saying that they're reading it because she happens to be female so much as it's an interesting story that happens to have a female lead in a magazine for young boys, the latter of which is currently unusual. That's it.
The fact that her gender isn't highlighted at every turn doesn't mean it's irrelevant (if anything that would be worse). Emma would absolutely be a different character if she was male, and it'd also some of the current character dynamics pretty heavily. Again no one's saying that they're reading it because she happens to be female so much as it's an interesting story that happens to have a female lead in a magazine for young boys, the latter of which is currently unusual. That's it.
Why would it be worse? None of the cast treat her any differently for being female and her gender doesn't really detract from the current dynamic.
Not denying the fact that her being female didn't already play a role in the manga already with her taking care of the babies to find where the tracking device was located and of course the plot point of her being a candidate for the next Mama I just don't feel that the story takes gender into account as strongly as people believe.
Never said that that the visual design of the One Piece's women is bad writing. I stated that Oda's women aren't good either. Oda is a mangaka, who draws many, many creative, diverse & amusing characters, but is also known that his women are many times an exeption of this, with people even calling some of his women Nami clones(which is debatable I guess, but the fact that there are people having this mindset is also a little bit telling).
And it's even an issue he is aware of: In a Q&A in a volume, he explained how he draws the hourglass-figure of many of his female characters, warning that there will also be people complaining about it. And I get it, he has more boys in his mind, when he thinks about his audience & that is OK, but there is no denying it, that female characters aren't one of One Piece strengths.
Never said that that the visual design of the One Piece's women is bad writing. I stated that Oda's women aren't good either. A mangaka, who draws many, many creative, diverse & amusing characters, but is also known that his women aren't are many times an exeption of this, with people even calling some of his women Nami clones.
And it's even an issue he is aware of: In a Q&A in a volume, he explained how he draws the hourglass-figure of many of his female characters, warning that there will also be people complaining about it. And I get it, he has more boys in his mind, when he thinks about his audience & that is OK, but there is no denying it, that female characters aren't one of One Piece strengths.
Só because he draws somethings "diverse" it means he have to do it with everything or is a problem?
"Im not saying that sinilar design is part of bad writing, but ...(every thing in tour post defending that position)"
He isnt aware of any issue, because the hourglass design of women isnt a issue at all and he doesnt treat it as one. Him sayng that some people get an issue with it(where did he said that?) doesnt mean he thinks or that is one.
The damsel in distress argument doesn't work in One Piece because Luffy saved men and women alike from helpless situations, I don't think Nami and Robin were damsel in distress in their stories, rather it was very well written stories that goes beyond all that gender thing. I don't think One Piece female characters can be reduced to mere copies of Nami, all of them has their own personality: Robin, Vivi, Perona, Boa Hancock, just to name a few, are even remotely like Nami? Don't make me laugh.
Why would it be worse? None of the cast treat her any differently for being female and her gender doesn't really detract from the current dynamic.
Not denying the fact that her being female didn't already play a role in the manga already with her taking care of the babies to find where the tracking device was located and of course the plot point of her being a candidate for the next Mama I just don't feel that the story takes gender into account as strongly as people believe.
But isnt that the point, we are speaking of, why she is a GOOD female protagonist? Yes, she is a tomboy, but there are still little moments here & there or how you could interpret her protective instinct to all the other kids as being a big sister to them(something which Norman & Ray lacked), but this is the point we are speaking of. She is not the horribly written cliche, we see so many times in shounen. She is not someone like Sakura. She's still a female character who is the protagonist of a manga. A tomboy, but tomboys are girls. Otherwise you could say, every shounen protagonist who isnt a yelling boy who likes to fight, is a bad male character.
Now Tomboy became something non-cliche? Almost every manga has one of them so there is no difference between Sakura (which is actually how many girls act) and Tomboys in terms of being cliche or not. Emma didn't introduce anything new in her character and the fact she is a tomboy is not the reason she is a good character, actually, the fact that she is a girl have no relation to that.
Tomboys as protagonists are pretty non-cliche. There aren't that many mangas where a Tomboy is the lead character or at least I can't remember too many. Even in most Shoujos you don't have Tomboys as main heroine but either as sidekick, best friend or rival.
Sorry, but you really should know that there will be criticism by doing this. If you are capable of drawing a diverse & different characters, but a certain group(doesnt matter if gender, it also could be any ethnicity or some nationality) getting very similiar designs repeatedly compared to others, this very group will be not pleased about this. And in this case, the designs are also mostly used to appeal for the eye of teenage boys.
"Im not saying that sinilar design is part of bad writing, but ...(every thing in tour post defending that position)"
-"I'm putting my words in others people mouths!"
Sorry, neither do I want to Admins get involved in this nor do I want this thread end in an ugly battle. Because we all know how much worth such debates are in the internet.
But your reaction was silly. You ignored what I have said. With the same logic you could say, even bad or lazy artstyles doesnt matter in manga, as long you have writing. I dont really mind, when you prefer writing over artstyle, that's OK. But there is STILL artstyle & it is then a legimate issue to complain about it, because manga arent just writing. Because if they were, they would be books. And the issue I am talking about are the designs of several women in One Piece. There is also a reason why I said in my original post, why Oda isnt as bad as Kishimoto. Because we don't have someone like Sakura as maincharacter in One Piece.
He isnt aware of any issue, because the hourglass design of women isnt a issue at all and he doesnt treat it as one. Him sayng that some people get an issue with it(where did he said that?) doesnt mean he thinks or that is one.
If he explains how he draws this hourglass figure of his women but also warns that there are people having an issue with it, but him not treating, he IS still aware about it, he just doesnt care then. That's why I just, that he has more boys in mind, when he thinks about his audience & he probably also doing this, because he is enjoying drawing women like this. As an artist myself, I get this mentality, but that doesnt mean, I have to agree with this or even liking it.
Could you guys, PLEASE stop saying that!
I know what you mean by this, and we really dont have the need to debate if "girly-girl" maincharacters are OK. They totally are. The goddamn reason, why she is such a bad character, and why so many people complain about her, is the fact, that her whole character was just being about boys, and that she loved a bad guy for years, even married that same guy, because he was the "cool guy" in their youths. And dont give me any examples in real life, because this is a really bad thing in fiction and in reality.
Yes, she is a tomboy, but there are still little moments here & there or how you could interpret her protective instinct to all the other kids as being a big sister to them(something which Norman & Ray lacked), but this is the point we are speaking of.
You might not have meant it that way, but it comes across as you saying that Males can't care about kids. Her caring about the kids has nothing to do with her gender, its her personality. There would have been nothing wrong with making either of the two boys want to keep the other kids with them either. On a side note, thanks for mentioning the series your avatar's from, been wondering for ages.
I think one thing TPN does very well is with having Ray, Norman and Emma all share the MC role so none of them get shafted to the side. Someone said earlier, that if you want to write a female, just write a human, and it's very much true. We can believe Emma's actions are because of her personality, rather than her just being a female (which is what happened in Naruto). She isn't treated differently to any of the other characters because of her gender. Which is kind of what I meant earlier about when I said she could be male and it wouldn't change a whole lot. Im not trying to take away from her being female, im just saying that she doesn't follow any gender tropes and her gender as a whole doesn't really affect the story, her character does. And it's a good thing. We shouldn't have to distinguish between characters genders as it really shouldn't be that big a deal. The fact that it is, is the problem, but I can see why it happens.
I don't really wanna get involved in this but Emma not being female would at least have changed a big part of Norman's character. I doubt his blatant romantic feelings for her would still have been there if she was male and considering a lot of the things he did were for her, I think this alone makes a big difference. So I personally have my doubts that things would be the exactly same if she was a boy.
Well, it could just be rewritten as strong bonds between two male friends. It wouldn't really change much of the story and no one would bat an eye. Strong platonic male bonds are common in shounen manga after all.
I don't really wanna get involved in this but Emma not being female would at least have changed a big part of Norman's character. I doubt his blatant romantic feelings for her would still have been there if she was male and considering a lot of the things he did were for her, I think this alone makes a big difference. So I personally have my doubts that things would be the exactly same if she was a boy.
I'm not really going to touch upon this because this is also an issue in Japan but I don't believe his feelings would have been any different whether hetero or homo, that being said a same sex romance between two leads in a WSJ manga would definitely have not have flown under any circumstances (villains are okay though apparently) so Norman's affection would definitely not been as strong if Emma was male.
I read it and as far as training camp type of arcs go I've noticed that most usually have chapters that end that way, or maybe it just doesn't bother me that it did that. I'm really excited to see how this arc turns out.
Well, it could just be rewritten as strong bonds between two male friends. It wouldn't really change much of the story and no one would bat an eye. Strong platonic male bonds are common in shounen manga after all.
While that's true, they would still be a trio. The reason Norman puts Emma's desires above Ray's is because he's in love with her. If they were a trio in which Emma is male what is the justification they can give for Norman's clear preference of Emma? He sides with her despite Ray's plans making their escape easier and him knowing it. If they were an all male trio with a bond equally as strong between all three then there's practically no reason for Norman to go with the harder plan when he's a rational person.
His rationality is thrown away because of Emma, Ray even mentions this at some point. Doesn't this mean they wouldn't go down the path of taking all kids? That alone makes a difference in the story.
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